Maybe It Was Me
by Chaotic Demon
Summary: He's a ghost story.


This is super dark. Warnings for mental health issues and violent imagery.

* * *

Steve is giving him that strange look again. "Are you sure you're alright, Buck?" he asks.

James nods and gives Steve his best smile. "Of course I am," he tells him. "Why wouldn't I be?" He doesn't mention the Soldier standing in the corner. He'd learned long ago that no one else could see him.

* * *

The Soldier isn't quite certain why that man is always there, always dressed in the same blue coat. He never does anything, just watches everything unfold with the same kind of expression he'd sometimes find on his mission's faces when he had to complete them up close. The man tries to speak sometimes, but the words never seem to leave his mouth. The Soldier has to make out what he can by the shape of his lips. 'No,' the man says a lot. 'Stop,' is another favorite. There's another thing he likes to say. It's a name, the Soldier thinks. The shape of the word on the man's mouth leaves something inside of him feeling hollow, so the Soldier doesn't think anymore.

* * *

James is in bed with a warm body on either side of him. Tony is sprawled over him as well as half the bed. Natasha is carefully not touching either of them, arms resting in the space between the top of her head and the headboard. It's comfortable and warm. There's no reason for James to still be awake. He is anyway.

He watches with wary eyes as the Soldier walks around the bed. There's a gun in his hand, sleek and black. It can't do anything, the Soldier isn't real, but it makes James nervous anyway. The Soldier looms over Tony, traces the tip of the gun down Tony's naked back. Tony squirms in his sleep.

The Soldier makes his way to Natasha, uses the gun to push a lock of scarlet hair out of her face. Natasha sighs. There's no indication she's woken up.

"You can't have them," James whispers. The Soldier tilts his head and says nothing, face hidden behind the mask and goggles. "You can't have them," James says once more. "Go away." The Soldier stays, silent.

* * *

He assassinates one of the Heads, a warning from the others. There's blood on his hands; it makes the knife keep slipping in his grip. The Soldier poses the man in the way he's been ordered. His mission is splayed out on the wall like a butterfly pinned to a board. He ties a gag around the dead man's mouth.

The man with the blue coat is staring at something on the wall. The Soldier looks over to see what has caught his attention. It's a poster, separated from the spray of his mission's blood by a piece of glass. He stares at the red, white, and blue. There's a funny feeling in the Soldier's chest. Something is caught in his throat. The Soldier plucks the gun from his hip and fires a bullet into the smiling face beyond the glass.

* * *

"Do you believe in ghosts?" James asks them, one at a time.

"Only the metaphorical kind," says Tony, in the living room.

"Do you?" asks Natasha, in the kitchen.

Steve, in the gym, doesn't answer.

* * *

A hand yanks at the Soldier's hair, forcing him to look up at the Handler. "Mission report," the woman says. 'Why have you failed?' is what she means.

The Soldier shifts on his knees and tries to speak. It doesn't work the first time, so he has to try again. "Had a clear shot to the target, but the man interfered."

"What man?" asks the Squad Leader.

The Handler squats down in front of him. She takes him by the chin. "The next time someone blocks your shot with their body," she tells him, "shoot through them." She drags a thumb over the rough stubble on his jaw. "Understood?"

"Yes, sir," the Soldier replies. The Handler smiles at him as she stands.

"What man?" the Squad Leader asks again.

The Soldier points at the man in the blue coat, who is standing by himself in a corner.

The Handler frowns. "Do you see someone where you're pointing?" she asks him.

He hesitates. "Yes," he says after a moment, because he does see someone there. He always does.

"Damn it," say the Handler.

The Squad Leader sighs. "Not again."

The Handler nods to one of the technicians. "Wipe him," she orders. "We'll have him re-attempt the mission after."

* * *

James has trouble looking at Steve. He doesn't like how Steve keeps looking back at him and expecting someone else to be in James' place. Maybe Steve sees ghosts as well, because the person he keeps looking for died a long time ago. It's just him now, him and the Soldier.

That's the other reason James avoids looking at Steve. The Soldier is always there, lurking just behind Steve's shoulder. Steve's the mission that got away and the Soldier seems keen to fix that. The only thing standing in his way is the fact that he's not real. He's not.

* * *

The pleading is standard, nothing the Soldier hasn't heard countless times before. He ignores it. The man in blue, however, does not. He tries to grab at the Soldier arms, to make him stop, but the man's hands go right through him. The man tries again with the same result.

The Soldier keeps going until the witness is quiet. He shoves the corpse back into the driver's seat and stalks around the car to eliminate the wife. The man in the blue coat heaves and braces himself against the car. The vehicle shifts with the movement. He should report this, the Soldier thinks. The Handler should know that he's malfunctioning again.

* * *

"Why do you keep covering up the mirrors?" Tony asks one night as they're falling asleep. Tony's in the middle this time and James turns his head so he doesn't have to look at them.

"James?" Natasha questions.

I'm afraid of what I might see, he wants to tell them, sometimes I think that if I look in a mirror I'll see the Soldier staring back at me from my face. He can't seem to form the words. "I don't like mirrors," he tells them instead. He watches the Soldier, barely visible in the shadows.

He can feel the mattress shift behind him; he's fairly certain Natasha and Tony are having one of those conversations of theirs that are made up entirely of facial expressions.

When he gets ready for bed the next night, there's not a single mirror on their floor.

* * *

The man makes the Soldier uncomfortable. It's not a new feeling; there's very little in his life that doesn't make him uncomfortable. What's different is that the man makes him think, makes him question what he does. The man makes the Soldier wonder who he is.

It's all little things. The man will look at him with eyes that match his coat and the Soldier will remember seeing the same eyes in his own reflection. When the man clasps his hand over his mouth in horror, the Soldier recognizes the shape of his fingers. Sometimes the man will move his left arm and the Soldier feels an ache in his metal one. Sometimes the Soldier wonders if there's a reason they look so alike.

He knows he used to be a person before Hydra, before he became the Soldier. The Handler mentions it sometimes, as does the Squad Leader. They think it's funny that who ever he was before is now their asset. The Soldier doesn't know why. He doesn't want to know. He already has his suspicions. After all, there has to be a reason why the man in blue never leaves.


End file.
